Post by Okwes on Mar 30, 2008 14:37:21 GMT -5
Formula of the Jumping Dance [1] - Hupa
When that Indian was becoming a Kixûnai he worked making kiseaqot. He worked
on them every day. He finished one each day without eating, so quickly he
made them. They did not see him any longer. They thought he was dead.
Then after a while he came back. "I just came back to tell you what it is
they will do up the river on the bank. That will be the place for eating the
acorn soup. The pipe will lie buried there. That dance too will be held
here. The way they do over in the Kixûnai world; that way they will make the
dance here. In the way of the Kixûnai world they will dance." He, the
priest, must not talk about the wind that blows from the south. He must talk
about the ten winds which blow down from the world above. These will blow
down here. Ye winds which never blow in the Indian world, blow down here.
People will live to old age if they blow on them. He always pounds incense
and scatters it there.
Footnotes:
[1] Told at Hupa, November 1901, by Senaxon.
This formula is repeated by the priest while preparing the ground where the
dancers stand in the Jumping Dance at TakimiLdiñ. He is assisted in this
work by a woman. The stones and sticks are removed. The priest then strews
the powdered roots of Leptotaenia Californica over the ground on which the
dancers are to stand. The formula is repeated as the root is scattered. The
priest does not drink water during the ten days of the dance. He omits the
customary daily bath in the river or otherwise it will rain. He fasts each
day of the dance until the ceremony is completed for the day. He stripes his
body with charred Leptotaenia root beginning at his wrists.
Hupa Texts, by Pliny Earle Goddard; (University of California Publications
in American Archaeology and Ethnology 1:2); [1904] and is now in the public
domain.
When that Indian was becoming a Kixûnai he worked making kiseaqot. He worked
on them every day. He finished one each day without eating, so quickly he
made them. They did not see him any longer. They thought he was dead.
Then after a while he came back. "I just came back to tell you what it is
they will do up the river on the bank. That will be the place for eating the
acorn soup. The pipe will lie buried there. That dance too will be held
here. The way they do over in the Kixûnai world; that way they will make the
dance here. In the way of the Kixûnai world they will dance." He, the
priest, must not talk about the wind that blows from the south. He must talk
about the ten winds which blow down from the world above. These will blow
down here. Ye winds which never blow in the Indian world, blow down here.
People will live to old age if they blow on them. He always pounds incense
and scatters it there.
Footnotes:
[1] Told at Hupa, November 1901, by Senaxon.
This formula is repeated by the priest while preparing the ground where the
dancers stand in the Jumping Dance at TakimiLdiñ. He is assisted in this
work by a woman. The stones and sticks are removed. The priest then strews
the powdered roots of Leptotaenia Californica over the ground on which the
dancers are to stand. The formula is repeated as the root is scattered. The
priest does not drink water during the ten days of the dance. He omits the
customary daily bath in the river or otherwise it will rain. He fasts each
day of the dance until the ceremony is completed for the day. He stripes his
body with charred Leptotaenia root beginning at his wrists.
Hupa Texts, by Pliny Earle Goddard; (University of California Publications
in American Archaeology and Ethnology 1:2); [1904] and is now in the public
domain.
